Monday, June 3, 2013

More pictures from Akko

Here are the photos from the second half of the day in Akko. The first stop on the second half of the day was an art museum whose name started with an O, but which I obviously can't remember. This is what you see when you walk in:

Some legs with no body. Sort of disorienting, huh? There were also a lot of paintings. Here's one of the ones I liked more:

Then we went to what I think was the main attraction. It's this huge complex called the Citadel, which is primarily part of the Hospitallers complex, which had a prison, banquet halls, and of course a hospital area. Here's the outside:

A lot of it was under restoration, so that was a bummer. But you could touch some of the old things, which I always like to do:

The ceilings were really cool to look at:

In the courtyard, there was a big staircase that was impressive to look at:

This is a view of the great hall, which I think they're restoring in an effort to get people to have weddings there:

I don't think they'll want wedding guests to use the original toilets, though:

We had a hard time finding it, but there was a cool narrow tunnel to the crypt:

There was some cool old engraved stones, which were possibly tombstones, which we could also touch:

Here's the information about that one:

Akko (also known as Acco, Acre, etc.) has a flag:

At the end of the day, we went to a tiny museum called Treasures in the Wall. I'm not sure what it had to do with anything else at the site, because it was mainly a bunch of stuff from around the time Israel was founded (1948) and the century or so leading up to that time. I liked this hat making station (you couldn't actually make your own hat, it was just for looking):

My favorite part is the hat mold on the left. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but you can tell exactly what it is! There was an old sewing machine (another picture for my mom):

Here it is for its close-up:

I also liked this jewel scale, shown in use:

In our collection of oddly-sized doors, here's one so skinny that Sam might not even be able to squeeze through it:

This table looks pretty, but the white parts are made of bone, so don't like it too much:

Some beautiful Persian copper utensils plated with enamel:

Sam is getting ready to fire the cannon:

The view back towards Haifa. You can see the end of the land near the middle of the picture, and that's Haifa:

And here's a view back towards the city of Akko. You might be confused about how there are boats in the parking lot. Well actually, we're out on a jutting out point of land that has an inlet where those boats are parked. Nothing to worry about!

We walked back to the main street to get a shared taxi back to Haifa, and passed this interesting structure:

I'm not sure what it is. So that was our day in Akko! If it sounds like a busy day, then I would like to inform you that when we got back to Haifa, we then went to swim practice and then to a dinner and game night with some of Sam's friends from the Technion, which we didn't even get home from until 2am! On a work night! Not my favorite plan, but it was fun until the next morning when I had to wake up for a meeting :)